M. Trock Building

With an exterior as pale as this, there could be a risk for sunburn. Don’t worry, however, as this building doesn’t have to worry about UV rays. Situated on this block since 1885, this mixed-use building is a perfect example of the almost cream-like brick so unique that it bore an American city its nickname.

In the late 19th Century, business in Milwaukee was booming, and various structures from breweries to churches needed brick building materials to complete their construction. Due to the unique clay found in the Menomonee River Valley, these Wisconsinite bricks, once fired, take on a light yellowish coloring quite different from the normal reddish hue usually associated with bricks. They were cheap, easy to make, and due to the valley’s size, there were plenty of resources to go around. As the city’s landscape quickly sprouted up with yellow brick buildings like the towering Pabst Brewery complex, a nickname amongst locals also began to arise: Cream City.

A nod to the light look of the city’s bricks, and maybe the creamy tops of the ever-flowing beer in its breweries and beer gardens, the nickname stuck, and is a favored moniker of Milwaukee today. Even though the brick yards began to close in the early 1900s, the building material had made its mark not only in the city but was also incorporated into many structures in nearby Chicago and even as far as Hamburg, Germany. Easily recognizable in historic structures all over Milwaukee, Cream City brick has proven to withstand the test of time.

Since 2010, the Walker’s Point Center for the Arts has called this spot on the Fifth Street corridor home. It’s probably not hard to be inspired to create when the building is an artful design in its own right. The only problem might be the siren-like yellow bricks calling for just a few more seconds of one’s time.